by Ryan Schow
“Before we go,” Maria said, “answer me one question.” Marcus just looked at her, as if he needed this crap right now. “Are you safe to be around? Because my kids here—”
“I thought you said they weren’t yours,” Marcus argued, irritated that he was under trial by this woman whom he just saved.
“They didn’t come out of my vagina if that’s what you’re alluding to. But they are in my care now and so I’ve come to think of them as mine. In this world, what we take is ours. I would think you’d see that by now.”
Nick looked at Bailey, smiled, then said, “Yeah, we understand that. And we’re safe.”
“Are you good in a fight?” she asked. “Hand to hand, not just guns?”
“We’re not dead, are we?” Marcus said.
“No,” she said, touching his arm, “indeed you are not.”
The way she smiled at them, Nick felt it was totally disarming. He could tell by everyone’s body language that this group of theirs was now growing once again, this time by seven kids and an adult woman.
Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Four
Gunderson trudged up Masonic Avenue, a truly broken man. He was survivor to a fallen home he both built and destroyed, survivor to a family who died or left him, survivor to an enemy who both saved and banished him.
Where do you go from here? he wondered.
“Hey douchebag,” someone said, prompting him to look up. His face was stoic. Empty. There was nothing in his eyes, not when he saw three young men staring at him, not when he saw their guns pointed at him.
“What can I do for you girls?” he said, not breaking stride.
The trio stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “You can stop walking, maybe act like a bunch of loaded guns mean something to you.”
“They don’t.”
One of them pulled back the slide, chambered a round. “What about now?”
“Nope,” he said.
“So would you prefer we shoot you?”
Now he stopped, looked right at the kid saying it, then walked brazenly up to him, grabbed the gun by the barrel and pulled it up to his own forehead.
“Pull the trigger then,” he said. The guy tried to get the gun back, but Gunderson held it in place. “Pull it!”
“Have you lost your mind?” one of the other boys said.
Gunderson roughly shoved the gun away from his head, his eyes like lasers cutting through this kid’s confidence, this kid’s sense of place. “That’s what I thought, you sackless twit.”
“Who are you?” the kid with the gun and the lack of testicular fortitude asked.
“Gunderson.”
“Is that your first or your last name?” the smallest of the boys asked.
“Both,” he said, sarcastically.
“You live around here?” another said.
“Why?”
“Because if you needed a place to stay, we have a whole college up the street and plenty of room for vagrants like yourself.”
“We’re all vagrants now, son.”
“I’d rather not engage in the philosophizing of whatever it is you want to impress upon me. Do you need a place to stay or what?”
Looking from face to face, he thought, it couldn’t hurt.
“Sure,” he said.
They walked up Turk Street past a long block of two story homes over garages and past places like Sisters of the Presentation and University of San Francisco’s Board of Education. They crossed Tamalpais Terrace and that’s when the campus opened up into an overgrown front lawn and a row of half burnt palm trees. Sitting on top of the hill was a huge Spanish style fortress of buildings.
“What is this place?”
“Higher education doesn’t suit you?” one of them teased.
“Does it look like I had anything to do with higher education?” he asked in a sharp tone.
“Well now higher education might just save your life. Welcome to University of San Francisco’s Lone Mountain campus. We have multiple wings, dining halls, a watch tower, views of the bay, conference rooms, weapons and hand-to-hand combat training halls.”
“How many people do you have here?” Gunderson asked.
“One-seventy and growing by the day.”
“What’s your philosophy?”
“Rape, pillage and conquer the lands,” one of them mused.
Gunderson stopped, looked at him and said, “You’re telling me you little nerds want to rape and pillage?”
Two of them nodded, but the third said, “Well, we don’t rape rape. It’s just an expression. You’d have to know the gaming world.”
“I was too busy living real life to understand a world where you guys sat in front of a TV all day, playing video games and pretending what you did mattered.”
“Yet here we are, survivors of the apocalypse, in the biggest building in San Francisco, living—”
“It’s not the biggest building—”
“Living in the best building in San Francisco, conquering the lands, amassing our army, while you talk about your real world experience. You have no guns, no clan, no fortress. You’re basically a transient.”
“Yet if I wanted to, I could kill all three of you with my bare hands.”
“You running your mouth isn’t the same as being tough. Some of the best jaw jackers I know are gamers, so trust me when I tell you, whatever you think you have, you don’t. Maybe not with us three, but when you see what Lisandro’s built here,” the kid said, the name Lisandro making him flinch, “you’ll understand what it means to be part of a clan. “
“It’s still all make believe,” he said, suddenly curious.
“It was once upon a time,” the other kid said, “but the strategy was real, the attitudes prevailed and we know what it means to be a clan. All we’ve done is take our gaming applications and apply them to the real world.”
Looking around the sprawling grounds, up at the massive structure, at the stark white buildings with the Spanish tile roofs, he said, “Are you the clowns who’ve been launching bodies at the college down on Grove Street, just past the baseball field?”
The three mini-thugs whipped out their pistols lightening quick, like they’d been practicing the quick draw for months. It looked like the kindergarten gang was spooked. Gunderson gave a mighty roar of laughter.
“Look at how stupid you guys are,” he quipped, still in fits. “If you think I was part of that group and wanted to infiltrate your little rookie unit, do you really think I’d announce it to a pack of clowns like you?”
The three of them treaded looks, then the apparent leader said, “How do you know about the bodies if you’re not with them? Have you been spying on us?”
“I was getting my ass beat almost to death when they intervened on my behalf. Something I’ve come to regret.”
“So they saved you,” one of them asked.
“Yes.”
“And now what? You just left there?”
“Not by choice. You see, I have a past gang affiliation. I’m not exactly a walking billboard for great life decisions.”
“You could be a born again,” one guy said, eyeing the tattoos.
“Well I’m not.”
“But you’re not a threat,” he asked, “right?”
“For now.”
“You think you can be a part of something without being a problem? Because if you so much as utter one treasonous word, there are guys in there who played Call of Duty long enough to gut you and still get a good night’s sleep.”
“Has anyone gutted anyone in this little clan of yours?” he asked with a hint of laughter still riding the hard edge of his words.
They exchanged looks once more, but said nothing. “You said you have a gang affiliation,” the leader asked. “Which gang?”
“Originally the Sureños, but I was brought into The Ophidian Horde when all this went down.”
“Those guys were cucks.”
“You say that because you’ve never stood on the other side of o
ne of them. A little pop tart like you, you’d already be gang raped and pushing daisies.”
“So you say.”
“If they’re so amazing,” one of the other two challenged, “then why are you out here alone? Why aren’t you with your gang?”
Reflecting on his original notions, he said, “I actually had the notion that I’d try to be a better person. That’s why I broke away. Became a solo act.”
“Seems like you need to get the band back together,” one of them joked. They all looked at each other and laughed.
“My life is better because of it,” he said.
“Sure it is, pal.”
“All three of you are alive, are you not?” he asked. They all wore that dumbfounded look on their stupid, zit covered faces. “See? Proof it’s working. So is that bed still available, or do I need to be on my way?”
“What did you do for The Ophidian Horde?” one of them asked.
“Chief Enforcer.”
Two of them swallowed hard, the other stopped blinking. Now they seemed to get it. It had only taken about a hundred years for these knuckle draggers to catch a clue.
“I think we need to take you to our leader,” one of them said.
“If you insist,” Gunderson replied.
“First,” one of them said, blinking, swallowing, inhaling his courage in a single gulp of air, “do you have any weapons on you?”
“Just my mouth and these,” he said, showing the boys his two fists.
“Alright,” the kid said.
The trio walked Gunderson inside, past security—who needed a detailed explanation about Gunderson’s presence—and then through two more layers of security where a man of maybe forty or forty-five years was sitting in a chair with a drink in hand and two girls on the couch reading back issues of Cosmopolitan and Allure magazine.
“So they tell me you were a Chief Enforcer for one of the SoMo gangs,” he said.
This man was very black with a heavy South African accent Gunderson liked. But he was no pushover. Gunderson saw that right away. He was thin but strong looking, with big hands with scarred knuckles. Surprisingly, he had good teeth and bright eyes, something you don’t always see on a man of his assumed position. Then again, maybe he ruled the world of Grand Theft Auto and was now just wise enough to “earn” his position.
“I was,” Gunderson said.
“What happened?”
“Didn’t like the turn of events, so I left, thought I’d find God, or myself. Something like that.”
“He was on his Eat, Pray, Love journey,” one of the girls said.
To the girl, the black guy said, “You’re the decoration, not an opinion anyone cares to hear just yet, so why don’t you just sit there, read your magazine and shut that gorgeous mouth of yours.”
The way he was coming off, he could be an African warlord, or a hip hop star. Gunderson didn’t quite know yet. But judging by the size of his knuckles, he was used to beating things, and not just the video game controllers.
“Yes, Bear,” she said, giving him a sultry look, like she was one of those girls who liked a man to talk down to her.
“Your name is Bear?”
“Barry,” he said. “But everyone calls me Bear.”
“Why?”
He raised an eyebrow, gave a dismissive wave of his hand, then said, “I’m more concerned with your past affiliations than I am the nicknames created for me by underlings.”
“If you weren’t concerned, I’d be shocked into a coma. Look, if you don’t have room for me here, that’s okay. I’m doing my own thing these days anyway.”
“Every man needs a home, a family, someone to love,” he said, glancing at the two girls on the couch. Neither girl looked a day over twenty; Bear was for sure in his mid-forties.
Adeline, Gunderson’s daughter, had been twelve when she and her mother were murdered. He still considered himself a father, and seeing these two tarts flirting with Bear—a man twice their age and then some—was beginning to turn his stomach.
“I had all that once,” he said, thinking of his wife Nilda and Adeline. “I brought them nothing but pain, and eventually death.”
“It’s your ability to bring about pain that interests me. As Chief Enforcer, did you ever…get your hands dirty?”
“Every so often I got them clean,” he said. “Other than that my job was to get my hands dirty. But you know this already, don’t you Bear?”
The man smiled, showing Gunderson those perfect pearly whites. Then he said, “I understand you came from the college on Grove Street.”
“I did.”
“What can you tell me about them?”
“That they don’t like you slinging dead bodies on their lunch tables while their kids are eating. That they found it even more offensive that you set them on fire and launched them in at night.”
“How many of them are there?” he asked.
“You show me a bed and we’ll have a talk. I’m not just going to come in here and regurgitate what is potentially valuable information.”
“If it’s a bed you want, you can get one of those by joining the clan. You need not give me enemy battle plans, or a layout of their fortress.”
“Who is this Lisandro?”
“He is our leader,” Bear said. If he was taken aback by Gunderson using that name, he almost didn’t show it. Almost.
“And that makes you—?”
“His General,” Bear answered with a nonchalant grin.
“Why don’t you take me to Lisandro, so I can properly introduce myself.”
“No one gets to meet Lisandro unless there is a reason to meet Lisandro,” Bear said with a bit of dramatic flair.
“How about this. I know the inside of the college, their weaknesses, their fighters and their women. I know their kids, their snipers and all the exits. So basically I know everything you need to know to defeat them.”
Bear seemed to chew on this for a moment. Then he looked at the girl, a young Latina, and he said, “Francesca, love, what do you think about this?”
She snapped her gum, then said, “Lisandro’s not going to like him.”
Smiling at Gunderson, he said, “And that is why we must take you to him.”
“Why do you always ask for my opinion then do the exact opposite?” Francesca asked, seemingly hurt as she sat there in her lingerie with her magazine, being the eye candy.
“Because you have bad instincts and you’re not very smart.”
“If I’m so dumb, then why bother with my opinion at all?” she asked.
“Because every time I do the opposite of what you suggest,” Bear said, standing up, “I’m met with good fortune. Believe it or not, cookie, you’re my good luck charm.”
Now she smiled, but the smile was dim. She went back to reading her magazine, then said, “Lisandro’s not going to like him.”
Bear walked Gunderson down the hallway to the Rossi Wing. There was a lot of construction going on, a remodel if you will, by young carpenters. It seemed they were trying to make things bigger, more accessible. Did they plan on filling this entire campus with people? Were they really going to amass a clan to end all clans? Looking around, one would certainly think so.
When Bear met a door he couldn’t just walk through, he knocked.
“Come in!” the voice said.
He opened the door, entered the room, then stepped out of the way and let Gunderson enter. Inside was a large office done in expensive décor. It wasn’t something you’d see in any style magazine but it had a certain finesse to it he could appreciate. Lisandro was sitting behind a very large desk and off to the right was a large cage with three naked girls inside. They didn’t look happy, but they didn’t look starved or angry either. It was as if they had just accepted this.
Lisandro looked up at Gunderson, held his eye for a long time. Gunderson refused to blink. Then, to Bear, Lisandro said, “Leave us.”
Bear left.
“This is interesting,” the eighteen year
old said to Gunderson.
“It is every bit as interesting to me as it is to you,” he replied, breathless.
“So what is it I can do for you, father?”
Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Five
The conference table hadn’t seen this level of activity ever. Now it seemed Rider and his friends were burning away the hours in the War Room, game planning and strategizing, brainstorming with more than a dozen other residents around three long tables pushed together.
At least the chairs were uncomfortable. At least it was stuffy.
They cracked the windows for some fresh air. They didn’t hear the chaos unfolding on the Grove Street side of the building.
Atlanta burst through the door to the War Room, quickly caught her breath, then looked at the upper echelon of security gathered around the tables and apologized for interrupting.
“There are glass bottles being hurled against the side of the college,” she said. “We think it’s them.”
“Glass bottles?” Rider asked, perplexed and shooting out of his chair.
“Yes,” she said, freaked out.
“Is there anything in these bottles?” Rider asked. “Or is it just bottles?”
“It looks like water.”
“What are they, twelve?” Rider grumbled, pushing past her, stalking down the hallway.
Outside, there was broken glass everywhere. People who saw it happening said only a couple of dozen bottles hit, then it stopped.
“Where’d they hit?” Rex asked. There were five of them outside: Rider, Rex, Jagger, Indigo and Cincinnati. Atlanta hung out in the doorway in case more bottles came flying in.
“Some went on the roof,” Atlanta said. “Some hit low. Most of them were concentrated on the second and third stories, though.”
“Anyone hurt?” Jagger asked.
“No.”
“Any broken windows?”
“One.”
Elizabeth came out with a broom and dustpan and Lenna in tow. Jagger went to the girl, said, “It’s not safe out here, sweetheart,” then looked at Lenna and said it was best they head back inside.
“It stopped though,” Elizabeth said. She was still so cute. Her face was more relaxed than when Jagger first found her, the pinched brows gone, her blonde bob pulled back in a micro ponytail fashioned by Lenna, who’d taken to the girl as if she were her own flesh and blood.